still broke; sometimes knitting

bloggy business

As you might have guessed, I’ve discovered the slogalong. As you might not have guessed, I am strangely beguiled and energized by the presence of an official site dedicated to all things slog.

Is it bad that most of my projects seems to fit in the category right now?

Here’s square no. 2:

The wonderful Mr. B. mentioned that I’d have a nice scarf if I give up on the blanket idea. Clever Mr. B. A definite enabler of my horrified, oh-my-God-what-have-I-got-myself-into feelings about lizard ridge. Lovely? Yes. Expensive? Undoubtedly. Completed? Not so likely.

And the buttony keeps on coming. This time I didn’t even take it out of the sack.

I’m on the bottom ribbing; still inches to go. And arms. I’m not sure the yarn is going to hold out on me. That merino chunky knits up like nobody’s business: gone in a flash.

A couple of new buttons on the newly streamlined sidebar. I haven’t been participating regelmäßig-like in either Project Spectrum or Knit from Your Stash, but I thought even my intermittent participation deserved a button. I *have* been keeping both in mind a lot lately. My yarn buying has been curbed; my colors are all over the place and lots of fun … with special honors going to the LMKG chevron scarf.

But to truly welcome in my newly official Project Spectrum status, it’s time to finish up the big green monster: the buttony raglan. Luckily the scarf extraordinary fits the next installment of Protrum to a T. It’s sock yarn, right? And Noro! How could I forget Noro? I feel I might be getting the spirit but not the letter of the Protrum law …

Alice the intrepid explorer of cupboards will keep me on top of it.

[p.s. My KfYS button is from gleek.net. Saved on my own server, of course. Her KfYS was far superior to any others I have yet to find.]

I also have lots of pictures. It’s been a stressful bit, right now: rejections right and left; future plans to … um … plan. Needless to say, the knitting hasn’t been a number one priority. Procrastination, on the other hand, is doing a land-office business. I’m even procrastinating on my knitting … moving from one project to another without really finishing anything.

A case in point:

The buttony raglan: so very close, yet so very far from completion. I have about 40 more rows on the body and then the sleeves. I really like it … and would like it even more if I could just get it done. It might even still be cold out if I hurry.

This is procrastination project #1. You might recognize the beginnings of a lizard ridge. And you would be correct. This is only square two; so far, I have a napkin. I was quite intimidated by the pattern at first, but once I learned to count and figured out how to purl the wrapped stitches (avec wrap) it was smooth sailing.

I managed to eke out one more pattern repeat than directed and since I don’t have an unlimited Noro budget upon which to draw, I thought I might be able to save a bit of yarn by doing rectangular blocks. We’ll see.

And the copy cat project:

Now with 100% more homage! Yep, I broke down (har har) and bought the required Socks that Rock colorways (i.e. Farmhouse and Watermelon Tourmaline). The heavyweight StR is great … I don’t know how to describe it, almost like string it’s so compact and tight. Does that make sense? It also kind of smells strange. I’m hoping that will wear off with time and love and washing.

… but feeling better, almost like a functioning member of society. I graded quizzes yesterday — with not major mishaps to rectify — and might take a stab at essays today. In the coffee shop. Yep, that means I’m considering a shower. The final stages of the cold have been reached. I hope.

My time on the couch hasn’t been all British mysteries and sneezing. Nope. I’ve got something to show for myself:

Ta-da! The EZ very warm hat. I somehow managed to miscount (and mis-pickup) the number of stitches on the yellow version, so some fancy footwork was necessary to get the pattern to fit, albeit with an extra pattern repeat. The crown decreases are equally funky. I briefly considered frogging but decided that my dad won’t notice … especially if he keeps the blue on the outside. Thus:

I’m also attempting to fix the "cold head" problem with accents of "itchy" ascribed to the manos hat:

The extra malabrigo seems to be doing quite nicely so far; I picked up the stitches just above the ribbing then increased 16 stitches over four rounds to even out gauge issues. My only worry is that I won’t have enough yarn … it might turn quite patchworky in there.

It’s not all knitting around here, though. Alice found a real mouse last night; she’s been strutting around the house like the mighty huntress all day. (Even mighty huntresses sometimes get shut in bedrooms while their keepers try to steer frightened rodents out of the house, only to watch them disappear into the recesses of the kitchen appliances.)

I realized it’s been a while since I actually posted … unfortunately, I don’t have much in the way of updates. I now have a cold (darn undergraduates) after recovering from a sinus infection (stupid genes), so obviously I have managed to piss off some kind of celestial deity. Chamomile tea sales, however, are sky-rocketing. I am going to get some kind of prize from Celestial Seasonings when this is all over. At least I got a spiffy new mug at Target. And a microwave kettle from my mom for Christmas. It was a kitchen-themed year.

But to get back to the knitting. It’s spring break (despite the inches of sleet on the ground) and I plan on getting some projects underway and/or finished. Well, and some work too. Obviously.

First on the list:

The EZ very warm hat + Alice very curious cat. The malabrigo is knitting up wonderfully; my adventures in fair isle / stranded knitting / color work went quite well. I did my own little experiment on color dominance (note the bottom row of yellow lines). And yep, it’s true; Nona was right.

I’d also like to make some progress on the buttony raglan … it’s stalled at "started". Oh well.

So … big things to report around here. Well, technically, the "big things" is perhaps an exaggeration. But things, definitely.

I finished a hat for Mr. B (I got it back for photos because it was deemed "not warm enough"):

This is the feeling fuzzy basic hat from the Yarn Girls’ Guide to Simple Knits knit up with two colors of Manos del Uruguay: brown and green (sorry for lack of specifics). N. B. tripling the yarn as directed might be the solution to cold-head complaints.